29C19.   Exodus 17:8-13.  The Israelites were battling the Amalekites to the death.  “As long as Moses kept his hands raised up, Israel had the better of the fight, but when he let his hands rest, Amalek had the better of the fight.  Aaron and Hur helped Moses keep hands up until Joshua, commander of the Israelite forces, mowed down Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword.”  The “Lord, who made heaven and earth,” helped his people to victory because Moses appealed to him persistently with raised hands.

Luke 18:1-8.  ”Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.”  He then tells of a widow who keeps bothering the unjust judge persistently without any sign of giving up until she got a fair decision against her adversary.  Widows were considered powerless without a male to protect them but this widow put her faith in God without any earthly being to help her.  In Luke 11:10 Jesus says: “For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”  People of faith entrust themselves into the hands of God, our Father, as do babies into the hands of their parents.  1 John 5:14 reads, “And we have confidence in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.” Our journey through life on the way to heaven is filled with joys and troubles.  Trusting in the Lord through it all requires, demands, makes it absolutely necessary to live each moment with the Lord as the strength that will enable us to remain faithful till our final moment here.  Jesus ends this reading with a question that deals with our discouraging earthly frailty: “But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”  I think that Jesus answers his own question in John 17:12: “When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me, and I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled.”  This Sunday’s psalm 121 reads: “The Lord is your guardian;” and further on: “The Lord will guard you from all evil; he will guard your life.”  He never sleeps; he is always vigilant.  Jesus says in John 16:33 to assure us:  “I have told you this so that you might have peace in me.  In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.”

2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18.  As with any journey we must know where we are going and how to get there.  As we go through life, we need to take advantage of every opportunity to learn the “wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”  The Holy Spirit is forever active in guiding us by using Scripture and the wisdom (mind) and courage (heart) given to us through others who become part of our lives through the years.  The Holy Spirit is “our help from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” He uses some of the things of this earth (as in the pages of the Scripture) and the people (whom he sends us on this earth) as the earthly means to help us for our spiritual benefit.  We must be ever mindful that life has been given us as a one-time opportunity to reach eternal happiness.  If we are mindless and careless, we risk eternal hell.